Trying to Forget You
by percylupin
Summary: Gabrielle Lockwood. Her name would forever haunt him. It has been over a year, and still Dean cannot forget the way she made him feel. The way her lips tasted on his own. The feel of her in his arms. What he wouldn't do to forget her, but how can he when she haunts his every step?


**A trial story. First Supernatural story. Please be nice. Updates will be irregular and I have no promises of when the next one will be.**

**Disclaimer: Me no own.**

_I still remember the look on your face_

_Lit through the darkness at 1:58_

_The words that you whispered_

_For just us to know_

_You told me you loved me_

_So why did you go away?_

_Away_

* * *

><p><em>Girardeau, Missouri<em>

_May 27, 2004_

Gabrielle Lockwood. Her name haunted Dean, even as he lay in bed with Cassie in his arms. He lifted his head to look at the clock sitting on the nightstand. **1:58**. Dean let his head drop back down onto the pillow.

Five years. He had spent five years, with her, and now he was left with nothing except a silver promise ring. Dean twisted the silver ring on his right hand and gave a small grimace. It had been six months now. He needed to forget.

* * *

><p><em>Palo Alto, California<em>

_October 31, 2005_

Dean pulled up outside Sam's apartment building in Palo Alto. He walked up to the window near the door, and pushed it open. _Really, Sam?_ Dean thought. _You didn't lock the window?_ Sighing, Dean climbed through the window and landed with a soft thump. He quickly stood up, and moved to the refrigerator. He was about to grab a beer, when someone grabbed him from behind.

Dean flipped around in the larger man's grasp and started fighting. He threw punches and kicks until the taller man was on the ground underneath him.

"Woah, easy tiger," Dean laughed. He grinned down at his younger brother.

"Dean?" Sam gasped, staring up at Dean with wide, hazel eyes. Dean laughed harder. "You scared the crap out of me!"

"That's cause you're out of practice," Dean smirked. Sam huffed and grabbed Dean around the neck, flipping them over so he was on top. "Or not," Dean admitted jokingly. "Get off of me." Sam rolled his eyes and rolled off of Dean, holding a hand out to help pull him up.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sam asked, brushing his tee shirt off.

"Well, I was looking for a beer," Dean grinned. His grin turned to a cheeky smirk.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sam repeated irritatedly. Dean sighed and grabbed a beer from Sam's fridge.

"Okay. All right. We gotta talk."

"Uh, the phone?" Sam grumbled. He rubbed his shoulder where he must have hit it without Dean noticing.

"If I'd'a called, would you have picked up?" Dean asked. He looked down at his feet. "You haven't for the past few years." The lights flickered on, and a blond girl wearing boyshorts and a cropped smurfs shirt entered the kitchen.

"Sam?" the girl asked in confusion. Sam and Dean both turned their heads to face her in unison.

"Jess," Sam said. "Hey. Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica." Dean looked her up and down. She had nothing on Gabbi, but Dean needed to forget her.

"Wait, your brother Dean?" Jess asked almost excitedly. She smiled widely at Dean when Sam nodded. Dean grinned at her and took a step closer, ignoring his mind telling him that it was wrong. That Jess wasn't Gabbi.

"Oh, I love the Smurfs," Dean smirked. "You know, I gotta tell you. You are completely out of my brother's league."

"Just let me put something on," Jess muttered. She turned to go, but stopped when Dean spoke.

"No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it. Seriously." Dean sauntered back over to Sam, without taking his eyes off Jess. Sam fixed him with a stony glare.

"Don't you have a girlfriend already?" he snapped. Dean frowned hard.

"If you answered your phone, you would know that we've been over for awhile now," Dean ground out. "Anyway, sweetheart, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business. But, uh, nice meeting you."

"No," Sam said. He walked over to Jess and put an arm around her. "Look, man, I'm sorry for not answering the phone, but whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her."

"Okay," Dean sighed. He turned to look both Sam and Jess straight on. "Um. Dad hasn't been home in a few days."

"So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift," Sam said simply, without emotion. "He'll stumble back in sooner or later." Dean ducked his head for a second before looking back up.

"Dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days." Sam's expression didn't change while he took in what Dean said. Jess glanced up at him worriedly.

"Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside," Sam mumbled, following Dean out the door. The two brothers headed out to stand near Dean's car. Sam had thrown on a pair of jeans and hoodie.

"Come on, Dean," Sam griped. "You can't just break in, middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you."

"You're not hearing me, Sammy," Dean retorted. "Dad's missing. I need you to help me find him."

"You remember the poltergeist in Amherst?" Sam nearly shouted. "Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine." Dean stopped walking and turned around. Sam stopped too.

"Not for this long. Now are you gonna come with me or not?" Dean was glaring angrily at his younger brother.

"I'm not," Sam said. He glared right back at Dean.

"Why not, Sammy?" Dean demanded.

"I swore I was done hunting, Dean. For good." Sam crossed his arms in front of himself. "And don't call me Sammy."

"Come on. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad." Dean would never admit he was pleading, but he _needed_ Sam to come with him. Dean started walking again. Sam followed behind.

"Yeah? When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45." Dean stopped at his car.

"Wall, what was he supposed to do?" he demanded.

"I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark." Sam stopped a few feet from Dean, his arms still crossed.

"Don't be afraid of the dark?" Dean asked sarcastically. "Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there."

"Yeah, I know, but still," Sam sighed tiredly. "The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her." Dean glanced around them. "But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we _can_ find.

"We save a lot of people doing it, too!" Dean yelled. There was a pause as the brothers looked around to see if anyone had heard them."

"You think Mom would have wanted this for us?" Sam asked. Dean rolled his eyes and yanked open the driver's side door of the impala.

"Are you coming or what, Sam?" Dean sat down and shut his door. Sam sighed and ran to grab a duffel.

* * *

><p><em>Jericho, California<em>

_November 1, 2005_

Dean parked the Impala in front of a gas pump. He hummed along to "Ramblin' Man" as it played on the radio. He walked into the convenience mart carrying a bag full of junk food. Sam was sitting in the shotgun seat, going through a box of old cassette tapes.

"Hey!" Dean said. Sam leaned out the window to look at him. "You want breakfast?"

"No, thanks," Sam mumbled. "So how'd you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit card scams?"

"Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro ball career," Dean laughed. He pulled the nozzle out of the Impala and put it back on the pump. "Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards."

"Yeah?" Sam smirked. "And what names did you write on the application this time?"

"Uh, Burt Aframian," Dean grinned. He got into the driver seat put his soda and chips down into the middle of the seat. "And his son Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal." Dean closed the door behind him.

"That sounds about right," Sam said. He started to laugh. "I swear, man, you've gotta update your cassette tape collection." There were at least a dozen cassettes in the box on Sam's lap. Dean looked into the box and saw a Bon Jovi cassette on top, one of Gabbi's she had forgotten to take with her. Dean would probably never listen to it again.

"Why?" Dean snarked back.

"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes," Sam snorted, holding up the Bon Jovi tape. "And two; Bon Jovi? Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica?" Dean grabbed the Bon Jovi and Metallica tapes from Sam. "It's the greatest hits of mullet rock."

"Well, house rules, Sammy," Dean grinned. He popped Metallica in the player.

* * *

><p><em>Centennial Highway Jericho, California<br>November 1, 2005_

Dean glanced over at Sam as he parked behind two police cars and several officers on a bridge. "Check it out, bro," Dean said. Sam leaned forward for a closer look. Both brothers climbed out of the Impala. Dean grabbed two FBI badges out of the glove compartment before climbing out. "Let's go."

On the bridge the deputy leaned over the railing to yell down to two men in wetsuits who were poking around the river. "You guys find anything?" the deputy shouted.

"No! Nothing!" one of the men called back. The deputy tuned back to the car in the middle of the bridge. A different deputy was looking around the inside of the driver's side of the car.

"No sign of struggle, no footprints, no fingerprints," he grumbled. "Spotless. It's almost too clean." Dean and Sam walked into the crime scene like they belonged there."

"So, this kid Troy," the first deputy asked. "He's dating your daughter, isn't he?"

"Yeah," said the second.

"How's Amy doing?"

"She's putting up missing posters downtown."

"You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?" Dean asked, walking up behind the police officers. The two deputies looked up when Dean started talking and straightened up to talk to him.

"And who are you?" the first one asked. Dean flashed him his badge.

"Federal marshals."

"You two are a little young for marshals, aren't you?" the man asked. Dean laughed.

"Thanks, that's awfully kind of you," he smirked. Dean went over to the car. "You did have another one just like this, correct?"

"Yeah, that's right. About a mile up the road. There've been others before that."

"So, this victim," Sam asked. "You knew him?" The deputy nodded.

"Towns like this, everybody knows everybody." Dean circled the car, looking around.

"Any connection between the victims, besides that they're all men?" he questioned.

"No. Not so far as we can tell," the man replied.

"So what's the theory?" Sam walked over to Dean.

"Honestly," the deputy said. "We don't know. Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?"

"Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys," Dean bit out. Sam stomped on Dean's foot.

"Thank you for your time," he said. Sam started to walk away, and Dean followed. "Gentlemen." The deputies both watched the two brothers leave. Dean smacked Sam on the back of the head. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Why'd you have to step on my foot?"

"Why do you have to talk to the police like that?" Dean looked at Sam and moved in front of him, forcing Sam to stop walking.

"Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves." Sam cleared his throat and looked over Dean's shoulder. Dean turned around. The sheriff and two FBI agents were standing there.

"Can I help you boys?" the sheriff asked.

"No, sir, we were just leaving," Dean said. As the FBI agents walked past, Dean nodded at each of them. "Agent Mulder. Agent Scully." Dean and Sam headed past the sheriff, who turned to watch them go.

* * *

><p><em>Jericho<br>November 1, 2005_

A girl was hanging up posters outside a movie theater that held the missing boy's face. Dean and Sam slowly approached the girl.

"I'll bet you that's her," Dean said softly.

"Yeah," Sam agreed.

"You must be Amy," Dean smiled softly at Amy. He wondered if Gabbi had ever been this worried when he was away on a hunt longer than he said he would be. Had she sat by the phone waiting for him to call, ever?

"Yeah," Amy said grimly.

"Yeah, Troy told us about you," Dean continued. "We're his uncles. I'm Dean, this is Sammy."

"He never mentioned you to me," Amy replied quickly, suspicious. She started to walk away. Dean and Sam followed behind her.

"Well, that's Troy, I guess," Dean kept talking. They needed information from her. "We're not around much, we're up in Modesto."

"So, we're looking for him too, and we're kinda asking around," Sam added quickly. Another young woman came up to Amy and put a hand on her arm.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asked

"Yeah, Rachel," Amy sighed.

"You mind if we ask you a couple questions?" Sam asked as gently as he could.

* * *

><p><em>Jericho Public Library<em>

_November 1, 2005_

Dean opened the web browser to the Jericho Herald archive search page. He typed "Female Murder Hitchhiking" into the search box and hit the enter key. Zero results came up. Dean replaced Hitchhiking with Centennial Highway and hit enter only to get the same response. He sighed. Gabbi had always done research for him on hunts that she came along on.

"Let me try," Sam groaned. Dean smacked his brother's hand away.

"I got it, Sammy," he grumbled. Sam rolled his eyes and shoved Dean's chair out of the way. "Dude!" Dean complained. He hit Sam's shoulder. "You're such a control freak."

"So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?" Sam asked, ignoring Dean's previous statement.

"Yeah."

"Well, maybe it's not murder." Sam replaced Murder with Suicide. An article called "Suicide on Centennial" came up. He clicked it. It was dated April 25, 1981.

"This was 1981. Constance Welch, twenty-four years old, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river." Sam pointed to a picture of the dead woman.

"Does it say why she did it?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Apparently her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back, they aren't breathing. Both die." Dean raised his eyebrows.

"The bridge look familiar to you?" he asked.

* * *

><p><em>John WInchester's Motel Room, Jericho<em>

_November 2, 2005_

"Dad figured it out," Sam said, amazed. Dean looked over his shoulder.

"What do you mean?" he asked, looking at the copy of the same article they had been reading that their dad pasted to the wall.

"He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a woman in white." Dean glanced over at the photos of Constance's victims pasted on the other wall. He smirked slightly.

"You sly dogs," he grinned. He turned back to Sam. "All right, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it."

"She might have another weakness," Sam reminded him.

"Well, Dad would want to make sure." Dean crossed the room to stand near Sam. "He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?"

"No, not that I can tell," replied Sam, scrunching his eyebrows together. "If I were Dad, though, I'd go ask her husband." He tapped the picture of Joseph Welch. "If he's still alive."

Dean stared at the picture of Constance as Sam walked away to do more research.

* * *

><p><em>Sheriff Pierce's Office, Jericho, California<em>

_November 2, 2005_

Sheriff Pierce entered the room Dean was sitting in. In his hands was an average sized cardboard box. He set the box on the table in front of Dean and glared at him from across the table.

"So you want to give us your real name?" the sheriff asked condescendingly. Dean had to fight the urge to sneer at him.

"I told you, it's Nugent. Ted Nugent," he replied lightly, trying to hide the way he was gritting his teeth. This annoying man acted like he was so much better than Dean.

"I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you're in here," the sheriff snapped, his glare hardening. Dean smirked back.

"We talkin', like, misdemeanor kind of trouble or, uh, squeal like a pig trouble?"

"You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall," Sheriff Pierce nearly shouted. Dean looked away as spittle flew at his face. "Along with a whole lot of Satanic mumbo-jumbo. Boy, you are officially a suspect."

"That makes sense," Dean snorted. "Because when the first one went missing in '82 I was three." Sammy hadn't even been born yet.

"I know you've got partners," Sheriff Pierce said. It was his turn to smirk. "One of 'em's an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing. So tell me, Dean," he tossed a leather bound journal onto the table. "This his?" Dean stared at the journal. He instantly recognized it as Dad's, but that journal was Dad's life. He would never leave it behind. He must be seriously hurt, or worse, but Dean couldn't think like that. The sheriff sat on the edge of the table, flipping through the journal.

"I thought that might be your name. See, I leafed through this. What little I could make out—I mean, it's nine kinds of crazy." Dean leaned forward to take a closer look. He couldn't help himself. "But I found this, too." The sheriff opened the journal to a page that read "DEAN 35-111", circled, with nothing else on that page. On the page next to it, Dean saw, "GABBI 765-4958" Her cell number. Why would Dad put those next to each other? Dean already knew Gabbi's number by heart. Hell, it was even still in his phone.

"Now. You're stayin' right here till you tell me exactly what the hell that means," the sheriff continued. Dean stared down at the page and looked up.

"My highschool locker combo," he said simply. The sheriff raised his eyebrows.

"Why don't we start with the phone number," he suggested, eyes narrowing.

"My ex's cell number," Dean said honestly. He didn't even know his dad had bothered to learn her name. He had only met Gabbi once.

* * *

><p><em>Sheriff Pierce's Office, Jericho, California<br>November 2, 2005_

"I don't know how many times I gotta tell you. It's my high school locker combo," Dean sighed. The sheriff had been interrogating him about the numbers on both pages for what felt like hours to Dean.

"We gonna do this all night long?" the sheriff snapped. His eye had started twitching about an hour and a half into the interrogation, and Dean found it highly amusing. One of the deputies leaned into the room.

"We just got a 911, shots fired over at Whiteford Road," he said gruffly.

"You have to go to the bathroom?" Sheriff Pierce asked Dean without acknowledging the deputy. Dean shook his head. He was so tired. "Good." The sheriff handcuffed Dean to the table and left. Dean smirked and reached for the paperclip sticking out of Dad's journal.

* * *

><p><em>Breckenridge Road Jericho, California<br>November 2, 2005_

Dean glared at the ghost trying to kill his baby brother. He saw red as he shot at her. Constance disappeared as the bullet went through her. She reappeared outside the car. Dean walked closer and closer, continuing to fire salt rounds at the ghost. He looked over at Sam as he started the car. Constance had reappeared inside.

"I'm taking you home," Sam said determinedly. Dean could only watch as he gunned the gas pedal, driving straight through the wall of the house. Dean hurried through the wreckage to where Sam was.

"Sam! Sam! You okay?" he shouted as he ran.

"I think..." Sam moaned.

"Can you move?" Dean asked worriedly.

"Yeah. Help me?" Dean leant through the window to help Sam up. Sam was able to climb out of the car with Dean's assistance. They didn't see the ghost of Constance pick up a picture.

"There you go," Dean grunted as Sam stood up straight. Dean closed the car door, and they both turned around to see Constance. She glared at them and threw the picture down to the floor. The lights flickered, and two more ghosts appeared in front of her. She looked truly scared of them, and Dean wondered if these were her children.

Water began to pour down the staircase. The boy and girl ghosts held hands and spoke together, "You've come home to us, Mommy." Constance looked at them, completely distraught. The two children embraced her tightly and she screamed. In a surge of energy, the three ghosts disappeared.

* * *

><p><em>Sam's Apartment Building, Palo Alto, California<em>

_November 2, 2005_

Dean pulled up in front of Sam's apartment and parked the car, frowning. Sam gave him a sad smile and got out of the impala. He leant through the window and said, "Call me if you find him?" Dean nodded despondently. "And maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?"

"Yeah, all right," Dean sighed. Sam patted the car door twice and turned away. He watched as Dean drove off.

* * *

><p><em>Sam's Apartment Building, Palo Alto, California<br>November 2, 2005_

The bad feeling wouldn't leave Dean. He had turned back and sat with the impala idling outside of Sam's apartment for a little over five minutes now. His eyes widened when he saw the smoke coming from Sam's apartment window.

Dean jumped out of the car and ran into the building and up to Sam's floor. He kicked the door in and shouted, "Sam!" Sam was raising an arm to shield his face from the flames.

"Jess!" he shouted. Dean ran into the bedroom, shouting Sam's name. He looked up to see Jess pinned to the ceiling, burning alive. "No! No!" Sam screamed. Dean bit his lip as he grabbed Sam and pulled him off the bed. He shoved him out the door with Sam struggling and screaming Jess' name the whole way.


End file.
